The Librarian

UNDER LOCK AND KEY

IN THE MORNING I got up, but the door of the bunker wouldn’t open any more. I couldn’t believe that this had happened and I kept calling: “Hey, is anyone there? Masha! The bolt’s got jammed!” No one came. I tried shaking the door, but soon gave up—I was the only one that got a shaking.

A wave of intestinal panic swept over me. I grabbed the bedpan out from under the couch and squatted down. Then I turned out the drawers of the desk in a desperate search for paper. Several exercise books came showering out. I plucked a few pages out of the closest one and wiped myself.

After that I felt a bit better and set about trying to free myself with renewed energy. I took a run up and flung my body at the unyielding door. I shouted hysterically, straining my vocal cords to the limit: “Polina Vasilyevna!” At first threateningly: “I demand!” And then pitifully: “I implore you!” And then threateningly again: “I order you to open up. I am Alexei Mokhov!”

All in vain. I lost my voice and bruised both my shoulders. Exhausted, I lay down on the floor and hammered at the door with my feet. I stopped when my battered feet were a cramped block of pain.

It suddenly dawned on me that this had all been set up. They were observing me in secret! But of course! This was the examination for the position of “grandson”, and I had done absolutely everything possible to fail it. Demonic howling, lowered trousers, intestinal cramps, convulsions on the floor. Appalling. Only a stout-hearted prisoner could count on freedom and power; a coward and nonentity didn’t deserve any leniency—that was what the old women had decided. I almost groaned aloud in the realization that all was lost.

I had to correct the shameful impression that I had made on my secret observers as quickly as possible. And I had to do it so that they wouldn’t realize I had seen through their game.

I called on my old acting skills to help. I laughed wearily, drew myself erect, spat on the floor and declared: “Why, the bastards…” I thought it sounded rather good. Firm, with a derisively hoarse note. A courageous, cheerful man had amused himself by acting the fool in front of the door for a while and then stopped. So what if he had relieved himself—that was only normal. He wasn’t the kind of fellow you could frighten with a solitary cell. Now he’d just perform a few push-ups on the floor, then sit down at the desk and browse through the exercise books…

There were six of them… a black one, a light-blue one, a grey one and three brown ones. Ancient exercise books from immemorial Soviet times, in oilcloth bindings. I hadn’t seen any like them for a long time—they had disappeared from the shelves many years ago.

The black one had been started. On the cover someone had written: “For Recipes”. Inside, the exercise book had been divided up into chapters. “First Courses”, “Fish Dishes”, “Desserts”, “Salads”, “Drinks”. There weren’t any recipes: the headings were followed immediately by blank pages.

The brown exercise books were untouched, but I looked carefully through them all the way to the stanza of typographical free verse on the end flysheet.

POLINKOVSK CARDBOARD AND PAPER PLANT

GENERAL EXERCISE BOOK

Item 6377-U 96 pages

Price: 84 cop.